The Dawn
by Anrheithwyr
Summary: The dawn was beginning to break over the horizon like a fever bursting into cool relief, making Lily gasp with excitement at the sight of it. She was sitting on the back porch of her Aunt Hermione's house with her cousin Rose, watching dawn swallowing up the last bits of night.


The dawn was beginning to break over the horizon like a fever bursting into cool relief, making Lily gasp with excitement at the sight of it.

She was sitting on the back porch of her Aunt Hermione's house with her cousin Rose, watching dawn swallowing up the last bits of night.

It was not uncommon for Lily to spend a night or two at her aunt's house, especially when Daddy was on a mission and Mum was busy following the Harpies, but Rose had been away at Hogwarts all year, and this was the first time Lily had seen her since school ended.

Rose was currently covered in ink stains, fingers and face blackened from a broken quill that her brother, Hugo, had chucked at her a few hours back, demanding to know why the two girls were sitting on the porch instead of sleeping like a normal person.

Lily offered her cousin a napkin from her pocket, which Rose accepted, cleaning the ink stains off of her face and hands.

"There's one on my dress," she commented quietly, lifting up her dress to show Lily, who nodded at the sight of it, marvelling at her cousin Hugo's ability to throw a broken quill at Rose and have it go all over Rose in such a way that it was probably impossible to get all the stains off with just a napkin. "Do you think you'll be here tomorrow as well, so we can stay up and watch the sun rise again?"

"I dunno," Lily replied, looking back down at Rose's dress, which had images of seashells printed along the skirt. "I guess if Mum's not back by tonight, I'll have no choice but _to _stay."

"You could always go over to Uncle Percy's and stay there for the night," Rose pointed out, to which Lily wrinkled up her nose.

It wasn't that Uncle Percy wasn't a nice guy, but he was a _boring _guy, and both he and his wife worked even more than Lily's parents, so she would still remain unsupervised by anyone except, maybe, Molly, who was seventeen and planning on attending a Muggle college in the fall.

"No, not Uncle Percy's, I think. It is…it's nice here, at your place," Lily was struggling to find the words to describe the sort of peace that seemed to permanently exist at her Aunt Hermione's house. "I like it here, I really do."

"I like it when you're here, as well," Rose replied, smiling at her younger cousin, leaning over to give the younger girl a hug, neither one of them noticing that the ink stains that went from smearing Rose's fingers to Lily's arm. "You're a lot more interesting to talk to than Hugo, sometimes. Mostly, he's just interested in chess, and I like chess, but you're also really good for chatting about just…just the world in general, you know? Just life…it's nice to talk to you."

"Do you think…"Lily paused for a moment, looking off at the still rising dawn. "Do you think that we'll still be friends for years? Like, even when we get older and grow up and have our own families, if we have families, I mean. Will we still be really good friends?"

"Of course." Rose said with determination, standing up so that the seashells on her dress shimmered with movement. "We'll always, _always _be friends. Forever, and no matter what anyone else says, we'll be friends, do you hear me? Forever and _ever_."

She leaned over to kiss Lily on the cheek before brushing off the skirt of the dress, causing more ink to smear across the seashells, before excitedly saying that she thought she could hear Mum in the kitchen preparing breakfast like she always did, waking up super early to make pancakes and eggs.

…

They were on the porch again, with dawn bursting into daylight, while the two cousins stood near each other, discussing Lily's most recent decision to adventure to Germany.

"Lily, this is a really bad idea," Rose said, doing her best to remain calm as her younger cousin crossed her arms. Lily was scowling at Rose, looking over at her with a put out look. "I don't think it's really very safe for you to just run off and go exploring…who in the hell knows where all by yourself with no plan and no idea where you're going."

"I'm not going alone, I'm going to be with Vic and her kids the whole time. We'll be fine, I promise you, Rose. I'll be fine. I just…I have to do this, you know? I just _have _to go see the poor thing. The last unicorn, they're calling it. I _have _to." Lily was giving rose such a pleading look, because more than anything else, she _needed _Rose to understand.

"Lily, this is dangerous, you know that. Those guys…the ones that are going to kill the beast, they won't care about one little girl who's there trying to stop them. I know you think you're doing the right thing here, but I really don't think that you should go." Rose shook her head, trying to imagine her little cousin running off to Germany to go watch an infantile unicorn be slaughtered.

"I know I shouldn't, but I have to. I really just...I _have _to, you know? I mean, I've just got everyone around me all the time, saying _no, no_, _don't do that, Lily,_ but I've just...I just...see no other choice with my life right now and. t's just like you know, sometimes, I just want to be ten years old again and staring at a sunrise with you, you know? Just watching the dawn rise on your mum's back porch and waiting until breakfast is ready, that's all I want, but it's simply just not a choice that I...that I _have _available to me right now."

"Lily, I know, but...I'm worried about you. I'm just...I'm only worried that something will happen to you and that just scares me. I'm afraid that you could get hurt or badly injured, or…you and Albus are my favourite cousins, you know that Lily, and if you were to get hurt, then I think I would just about lose it. I mean, have you even talked to your parents about this?"

Rose wrung her hands as Lily came to sit next to her, putting a comfort arm around her older cousin that was remnant of the hug they had shared fifteen years ago on the back porch of Hermione's house, watching the dawn rise and the night go back to bed.

"I promise you, Rose, I'm going to be fine. If they try to hurt me, then I'll just punch them in the face. I'm there…I'm only there to do the best that I can, and if the unicorn can't be saved, then I need to at least be there in the last few minutes, you know? I've been studying them all this time, watching the numbers dwindle, and now I just need to be there for the last one."

"Well…" Rose hesitated. "Just stay safe, okay? Promise me that much, that you'll stay safe while you're in Germany? I wouldn't want something to happen to you and I only get word of it after it's too late. Because if something happens, _I'll _punch _you_, do you hear me, Lily Potter?"

"Yes, ma'am." Lily replied with a small smile, and Rose leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek, grinning at her little cousin.

"Come on, then, Mum's going to make breakfast for us all, I think, so we better hurry inside before Dad and Hugo eat everything." Rose took Lily's hand in hers, and the younger cousin laughed at the sight of Rose's hands, which were just as covered in ink as they had always been.

"You know, I think you'd look really cute in a dress with seashells on the skirt," Lily commented happily as they walked inside, holding Rose's hand.


End file.
